Innovations in teaching, learning create new vision of intellectual community

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"That looks remarkably like the inside of my head," said Salman Rushdie. No, he wasn't looking at an fMRI scan but rather a white board in a seminar room covered with such phrases as "translation," "urban multicultural worlds," and "can a global citizen be monolingual?"

The white board recorded a student brainstorming session for a course on Translating "America," Translating the "Other," developed by Karen Stolley, professor of Spanish in Emory College of Arts and Sciences. This was one among a number of innovative University Courses that have focused on topics as diverse as poverty, politics, violence, health, and urbanization.

Innovations in pedagogy are occurring in many different forms all across campus. The particular genius of the university course — as pioneered in 2011 by Morgan Cloud, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law, and Jeffrey Rosensweig, associate professor of international business and finance — is to convene diverse students and faculty from across all of Emory's schools and colleges to explore major societal issues from multiple disciplinary perspectives and teaching methods. Allowing students to learn beyond their traditional disciplinary training and engaging with faculty members whom they otherwise might not encounter results in exciting class discussions that captivate faculty and students alike.